The biggest purpose of a hair cleanser is to maintain the cleanliness of scalp and hair by removing a waste, for example, sebum and to control the condition of scalp. The waste adsorbed on the scalp is acidified to proliferate bacteria, thereby causing unpleasant smell and itch. In order to remove the waste, a hair cleanser of which main ingredient is an anionic surfactant is generally used. The anionic surfactant is penetrated between the waste and the hair on the scalp, whereby the adsorptive power of waste is weakened and may be easily washed.
The surfactant which is the main ingredient of hair cleanser is generally anionic. The anionic surfactant plays a role as a primary surfactant and imparts a shampoo with such basic functions as detergency and foaming ability. The secondary surfactant is a co-surfactant and used for the purpose of improving durability and stability of bubbles and maintaining viscosity.
However, the anionic surfactant may cause irritation to the scalp. Also, the continuous and repeated washing by the anionic surfactant may interfere the normal metabolism of the scalp to cause various scalp disorders. Eco-friendly sugars and amino acid compounds have been developed to complement these problems. The amino acids occurring naturally in large quantities are studied in various fields according to the well-being trend in these days as a new alternative resource. Also, the raw material industry has continued effort to develop a surfactant that gives less irritation to the skin as possible or is skin-friendly.
On the other hand, as the ingredient of a hair cleanser, the case of using a powder is extremely rare. Only, the Korean Patent Laid-open Publication No. 10-2011-0102415 discloses a hair detergent composition containing a sebum-absorbent, and describes the possibility of use of a powder as a sebum-absorbent. However, this is used for the effects of sebum-adsorption from the hair, removal of dead skin cell, etc., which are resulted from the oil-absorption capacity of the powder itself. Also, the effect of improving the foaming ability depending on the particle size or surface characteristics of a certain powder has been neither realized in a product nor found in any prior literature.
Typical detergents contain the anionic surfactant in the amount of about 14-20% by weight for detergency and foaming ability. However, the anionic surfactant is one of the skin irritants, and thus it tends to increase the skin irritation when it remains on, or is exposed to, the skin for a prolonged period of time. Accordingly, recently, there are attempts to reduce the amount of anionic surfactant, but the reduction of foaming ability becomes the greatest limitation in such attempts.